Journey Place Narrative (JPN Lab)

Exploring narrative, film and literary texts and the discourses surrounding the formation of place knowledge, experience and value creation
View of the village of San Teodoro and Etna volcano on background. Sicily, Italy.

The JPN Lab is a research initiative based at the University of Plymouth which aims to:

  • Draw on disciplines and methodologies represented by the fusion of social sciences, language, literature and cultural studies, geography, history and business and management science.
  • Embrace emerging technologies for knowledge creation and open access, including enhanced digital publishing to reach policy makers in reduced time frames and to enrich university teaching and learning practices (networks, mobile and wearable, collaborative, web 2.0).
  • Explore narrative, film and literary texts and the discourses surrounding the formation of place knowledge, experience and value creation. This includes the written space and the practices used to share experiences and enjoyment of place.

The JPN Lab has productive working connections with research groups and labs across the world:

  • The Centre for Research and Sociological Studies (CIES), Buenos Aires, and RELACES (Latin American Journal of Studies on Bodies, Emotions and Society). From this collaboration, members of JPN have published the following research:

    Mansfield, C. Shepherd, D. and Wassler, P. (2021). ‘Perry – Deep mapping and emotion in place-writing practice’ in eds: Adrián Scribano, Margarita Camarena Luhrs and Ana Lucía Cervio Cities, Capitalism and the Politics of Sensibilities. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • SELVA (Society for the Study of Travel Writing in English), promotes studies relating to travel writing in the English language and tradition. Research in said tradition, widely dispersed in England and the United States, is not yet highly developed in France. This association has as its goal to unite researchers, writers, and members of the public interested in such an exciting domain.

  • Membership of the Scientific Council of research for Literature & Tourism at Lisbon University School of Management and the University of the Algarve.
  • University of Paris 8, travel writing teaching and research, online pedagogies.
  • EU Kaštelir Project on Iron Age settlements and Ethnobotany in Tourism Development. Worked with hotel, restaurant and museum in Newquay to develop the Ethnobotany Checklist for Tourism Development.
  • University of Nantes, life-writing studies in education research, which has resulted in a published book on narrative knowledges in urban space for new design methods for guided visitor routes in port cities.

Narrative knowing in heritage and travel conference 

Our last conference was on 27 May 2021

The conference explored how methods of contemporary literary travel writing can be brought into the work of academic researchers, writers and professionals in the fields of cultural heritage interpretation. Our keynote speaker was literary travel writer and pyschogeographer Gareth E Rees, author of Unofficial Britain: Journeys through Unexpected Places (2020), Carpark Life (2019) and The Marshland: Dreams and Nightmares on the Edge of London (2013).

We expect to publish an edited collection of the papers in The Journal of Tourism, Heritage & Services Marketing ISSN: 2529-1947.

Image: view of 9 Quai Saint-Michel, Paris 5. looking south across Seine from Ile de la Cité. Credit: Dr Charlie Mansfield

JPN Lab members